News Release

Joining forces globally against drug-resistant bacteria

Joint program initiative gathers research funders in the field of antimicrobial resistance to join under 1 research agenda

Business Announcement

Swedish Research Council

Antibiotics have saved millions of lives from once deadly infectious diseases. But, misuse of antibiotics and other antimicrobials in humans and animals has led to bacteria evolving resistance.

Today, 3 April 2014 in Brussels, the Joint Programme on Antimicrobial Resistance (JPIAMR) presented its strategic research agenda which outlines the steps that need to be taken to minimise antimicrobial resistance, one of today's most serious public health threats. In addition to the 19 countries which include European countries as well as Canada and Israel, already signed up to this initiative, JPIAMR received support from countries ranging from Australia to South Africa during this meeting.

"It's a worldwide concern that resistance to antimicrobial drugs, which have allowed us to treat or prevent deadly infections and save many lives, especially children, is now spreading all over the world at increased speed, related with the increased mobility of people. It's therefore crucial to immediately join forces under one research agenda to achieve a substantial and rapid impact, especially on global health threats like HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria", said Fulvio Esposito from the Italian Ministry for Education, University and Research.

Coming together globally is indeed crucial as the problem of antimicrobial resistance is so wide that the world now seems to be entering a post-antibiotic era in which sophisticated clinical interventions such as organ transplants, cancer chemotherapy or care for pre-term infants will become far more difficult due the threats of infections with multi-drug resistant bacteria. Resistance is so widespread that for some groups of bacteria, few antibiotics are effective enough anymore for therapy.

The Strategic Research Agenda (SRA)

JPIAMR has identified six priority topics which form a Strategic Research Agenda (SRA). These topics will give the fight against antibiotic resistance a multidimensional approach. The idea is that these approaches will be translated into new prevention and intervention strategies that improve the public health and wellbeing of populations and delivers economic and societal benefits throughout Europe and beyond.

  1. Therapeutics: Improvement of current antibiotics and development of new antibiotics and alternatives for antibiotics, such as vaccines.

  2. Diagnostics: Improvement of diagnostics and development of new (rapid) diagnostics to stimulate better use of current antibiotics and support the development and use of new antibiotics and alternatives to antibiotics.

  3. Surveillance: Establishment of an international, standardised surveillance programme for AMR and antibiotic use in human, and agricultural settings.

  4. Transmission: A comprehensive, multi-disciplinary understanding of the transmission mechanisms by which antibiotic resistance can spread between bacterial populations and between different (animal and human) reservoirs and to translate this knowledge into the development of evidence-based strategies to minimize the spread of resistance.

  5. Environment: Assessment of the contribution of pollution of the environment with antibiotics, antibiotic residues and resistant bacteria on the spread of AMR and the development of strategies to minimize environmental contamination by antibiotics and resistant bacteria.

  6. Interventions: Study of preventative and control interventions that focus on improved antibiotic stewardship, compliance and prevention of transmission of AMR and to determine and improve their efficacy.

"As this is an active research field and AMR is a very real and present societal challenge, the strategic research agenda will need to stay a living document that is continuously updated to keep pace with developments within research and society, "said Mats Ulfendahl, Swedish Research Council.

Operating at all relevant levels, from the scientific community to research funders and from policy makers and societal stakeholders to industry and SMEs, is the only way to reduce the inappropriate use of antibiotic use both in humans and animals to stop this trend from continuing and to ultimately find a more sustainable way to use antibiotics and treat disease.

Therefore, assisted by European Commission funding, the International Medicines Initiative (IMI), national funding contributions and public-private partnerships, the next step for JPIAMR is to fund research which fit within the six priority areas and which will contribute towards solving the AMR problem.

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Project website: http://www.jpiamr.eu

The Strategic Research Agenda (SRA): http://www.jpiamr.eu/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/JPIAMR-SRA-v1.pdf

Why JPIAMR?

  • Antimicrobial resistance is a real threat to the lives of European citizens.
  • Research of antimicrobial resistance in Europe is fragmented and few countries have specific programs dedicated to this field of research.
  • 19 Member states have joined forces in the Joint Programme Initiative on Antimicrobial Resistance (JPIAMR) to coordinate the research, in order to allow greater impact and avoid duplication.
  • Only by bringing together industry, public health and academic bodies to share experiences and resources across scientific disciplines will we be able to create long term reduction of antimicrobial resistance in Europe.

Aims

  • JPIAMR will develop scientific proposals which will lead to sustainable use of antibiotics to treat infectious diseases and to a decrease in the number of patients with resistant infections in Europe.
  • It aims to integrate relevant scientific fields across national borders and to create a common Strategic Research Agenda with a shared common vision where the best resources and capabilities are coordinated.
  • JPIAMR provides the forum and platform for initiating and coordinating joint actions with stakeholders beyond issuing joint calls.

Objectives

  • Find routes for novel antibiotics and new anti-infectious strategies.
  • Scientifically validate means to increase the number of patients treated early with the appropriate antimicrobial.
  • Provide scientific evidence on ways to reduce the spread of resistant strains.
  • Provide scientific evidence on strategies to reduce the number of patients with resistant or MDR strains, at any level of antibiotic consumption.
  • Reduce the consumption of antibiotics.

What is joint programming?

Research efforts can be essential to address major societal challenges. In some cases these are so great that national research programmes cannot tackle them effectively on their own. In addition, the vast bulk of research programmes in Europe are run in an isolated way, leading to unwanted fragmentation or ineffectiveness. Joint programming aims to remedy this situation.

Joint programmes aim to pool national research efforts in order to make better use of Europe's public R&D resources and to tackle common European challenges more effectively in a few key areas.

The ultimate objective is to overcome the fragmentation of national research programmes to address global challenges.


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